The Sisters Cinerea

I remembered a willowy girl, painfully shy and full of a secret enthusiasm. The woman who accompanied Selene was slim still, but aged. She wore a veil of white lace, and no jewelry. Her gown was ashen gray, and I picked out threads of white in the red hair she wore pulled tightly back from a high, fair brow. There were lines set deeply at the corners of Titania’s mouth, so that where before I was certain she had been the younger sister, I was as certain now she was the elder.

I took the other princess by the hand. “Enchanted,” I said.

Titania withdrew her fingers sharply.

“You must forgive my sister,” Selene said, “she does not often leave the Peronine Palace—only for sacrifice. She has consecrated herself to Mother Earth, as you see.”

“You joined the Sisters Cinerea,” I said. The Cinerea were mourners for Old Earth, women—virgins—consecrated to the Holy Mother, called to tend the fires of the sanctums that burned on every world.

Disquiet Gods, Chapter 32: Children of the Earth and Sun

Still others say that she, the Almost-Bride of the Sun Eater, serves now as one of the Cinarians, the Ash Maidens who serve at the Cenotaph of the God Emperor.

Disquiet Gods, Chapter 47: The Woman and the Girl